


Motel Rooms

by agoodwoman



Series: Revival [7]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, X Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-18 17:06:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4713788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodwoman/pseuds/agoodwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I had some prompts about what happens on the road if they're together or not. Drabble</p><p>Chapter 2 is the prompt for seeing one another in their FBI get up for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**During their partnership:**

When it’s separate rooms with no connecting door, after they’ve had dinner, they retire to their own spaces unless one of them can come up with a good enough excuse to be with the other one. “My television isn’t working.” “My room is cold.”

 

When they have adjoining rooms, they open their doors for the majority of their stay unless they’re showering. It makes it easier to work on the case, that’s what they tell themselves but what it really is after sitting on planes, in cars, police stations and listening to one another talk, they weren’t done being with one another. He would walk into her room with two beers or knowing there was a good movie they would both enjoy. Sometimes they fall asleep during the movie, Mulder spoons Scully as they on top of the covers. He wakes up before she does, or she wakes up before him and they don’t talk about the emotional implications of them both having a solid night’s rest next to one another. 

 

When they share a room, which has happened more than once… fourteen times in seven years because Mulder kept track, it’s only awkward right before bed if there’s only one bed. They make jokes about being adults, Scully tries to tell herself not to snuggle into the crook of his arm with her head on his chest, because the independent medical doctor, special FBI agent is an independent woman. But she knows she needs Mulder as much as he needs her, in different but similar ways. She keeps the monsters away that can haunt him at night. He makes her feel safe, even though her life has been put at risk more times than she cares to count. But waking up next to someone, the familiarity of his scent in the morning, when it happens when they’re lovers instead of partners, it doesn’t feel strange or new. It feels wonderful and comfortable. Exciting and arousing. 

 

**Not Together:**

The separate rooms without adjoining doors is a respite for her. She’s been taxed at spending this intense amount of time with him and fighting the old feelings of love, frustration, passion and want. She never anticipated this sexual frustration again. But what it also gave her was reminders of what kept them apart recently. Even with the work they had she needed the space, unlike before when she only craved it as a way to repress her feelings.

 

The separate rooms with adjoining doors was tricky. He opened his, always there for her but she was tougher to gauge. Some nights, when she returned to her room after dinner, she kept her door close, untucked her strict blouse from her pants or skirt and peeled the remainder of her armor from her body before sinking deep in the tub. She opened it when she had decompressed, ready to hear his theories or share a beer. Always and forever he would be there. He went to Antarctica for her, and would repeat the trip in a heartbeat. Even though she left, he would be there. A friendly smile, a movie suggestion and or junk food and they were spending time with one another, not discussing the case but trading theories. It made old feelings bubble up. It made passions ignite and often old signals were red flags. Getting too close. Mulder would stay until he could feel her cool, his heart knowing that hearing her say “can you leave now, Mulder? I’m really tired” hurt just as much as when she told him she couldn’t take what the darkness was doing to him.

 

It happened the first time on their second case and Scully looked at the young woman behind the desk like she must have grown a second head. It had to be a joke. They were together on cases but she had yet to fall back into bed with him. Mulder, who needed his own space, only for the sanctuary from being with her all day and wanting her, groaned and went outside to get their bags. The room was warm, too warm and she stripped off her deep blue blazer as he shed his suit jacket. The sight of forearms and sweat dripping down skin used to make them feel this way too. There would be no respite from one another, only anticipation and frustration. It was 1997 all over again. She showered first, not washing her hair, and dressing into pjs in the bathroom except they weren't the men’s pajamas she wore in the past. It was the camisole tank top and tap pants that he wouldn’t have known she packed if she had her own god damned room. God was punishing them both for living in sin. And he took one look at her bed attire and his cheeks flushed. He had purchased such an item for her after they returned from the bahamas, when he couldn’t get enough of her freckles and golden kissed skin. “I wasn’t expecting to share a room,” she said briskly and Mulder shrugged, explaining he didn’t bring anything to sleep in either, so she would have to be okay at the sight of him in his underwear. Except it wasn’t boxer shorts anymore. He switched to boxer briefs four years ago and that alone at this point was enough to excite her. She was excited. He took a quick shower also, his torso still dripping with water and she gripped the pages of her novel in determination to keep her mind off his body. Yet she could only think of licking each bead of water off his skin with her tongue. And she couldn’t climb under the covers because it was still too hot. She was sweating again and she could smell his body, under the faint aroma of the hotel soap. That manliness of Mulder. She tried not to notice as he flopped down on the bed and take up more than half of it. He popped a few seeds in his mouth and turned the television on. “Wanna watch a movie? I think the new Star Trek is on.” They pulled the bedspread back and laid on the crisp white linens, she fell asleep shortly after the movie turned on and he did his best not to spoon her in the night. 

 

**Together:**

The separate rooms was only a formality. They had been back together since their second case. They spent one night desiring one another, dressed in next to nothing before he joined her in the shower and made love to her against the tiled wall. He checked into his room and promptly made his way over to hers, resuming their “always together and never apart” routine. Even when she wanted to be alone, it was to be by herself, with him, in silence. He could hear her thinking anyway.

The open door policy of adjoining rooms suited them much better. He would use his bathroom simply for that and spent the rest of his time occupying her space. Even this time around, Mulder was not a quiet presence and she missed that when they were apart. He took her to nicer places for dinner and she tolerated the diner food at breakfast. Sometimes she stole some of his bacon and he ate the green melons from her fruit bowl. It felt like old times, before he was abducted and returned to the dead. It felt like the new romance that made them both happier than they knew how to deal with. “Just like old times,” he would say as he made love to her on top of scratchy bedspreads and she came quietly.

When they shared a room the second time after getting back together, Mulder didn’t even blink. “Is the air conditioning working?” Scully asked and they assured her it would be. They had a California king bed and two person tub, being upgraded to a nicer suite due to the inconvenience. Mulder ordered them room service on the company dime, including a bottle of wine and signed for the charges, silently challenging Skinner to make a comment when he submitted his report. After being in hiding for seven years, if the FBI had a problem with wine and dinner they could go fuck themselves. They made use of the bed, the tub and the desk that night and Scully made Mulder a fake medical chart with his refractory time. He liked the playful side of Scully that wasn’t tired of his theories and wanted him in her life. Even with all that was on their plates, they had the solace of one another. Their safe place was together.


	2. New Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder gets a new suit, MSR is not repaired

When she arrived in Philadelphia that morning she felt tense and tired, her body wired for the long day ahead but needing more energy than the six hours she got the night before and the three cups of coffee she had that morning provided her. 

 

The field office was in full swing at only 8:45 am and she hoped no one would pay too much attention to her at first. It had been too long since she worked in a bull pen, since she carried a gun on her hip and a badge at her breast. These compromises she made to the life she was trying to move on with were necessary. She told Mulder “someone needed to make these sons of bitches pay” and he saw the fire in her eyes he saw over twenty years ago until their own undoing.

 

“What’s up doc?” a familiar voice greeted and she turned from the desk with her name plate to the tall man in front of her. 

 

He had shaved, his hair had been trimmed a little and he was in a suit. He didn’t look like the shell of a man she argued with a week ago on their porch - scratch that, HIS porch. That man told her he knew what he was doing after he wrote messages in the dirt on her car windows. That man was bitter and broken, depressed and angry - mostly with her. After all, she was the one who left.

 

Not the man in front of her. This was the man she worked with twenty years ago but a little less spry and more salty coloured greys in the pepper of his brown hair. But his crazy green eyes with one wide pupil were alive and he smiled at her before cracking a shell between his fingers and teeth. 

 

He must have gotten these suits after he first met Tad because she doesn’t remember them. Ash grey, with an azure tie that played off each other nicely and she wanted to reach out to tug the end of it down just a little. Sometimes, when he rushed, he tied his ties just a hair too short. It was something she did when they were still in the basement. Before he made a baby grow inside her barren belly or they ran from the government. It was an uncomplicated time of sex two or three times a week, lazy weekends of shared bubble baths and release found under skilled mouths and hands. 

 

Those images flooded back to her and she looked down at the Jimmy Choo’s she splurged on after her last bonus from the hospital. Her pink tongue smoothed along her plump lower lip and she let out a breath.

 

 _Breathe, Dana. It’s just a shave and a suit,_  she rebuked herself. 

 

Maybe Mulder didn’t know it or maybe he had hoped it but this Special Agent, suit and tie, gun carrying and badge holding FBI agent really  _did it_ for her. 

 

If he put on his glasses or rolled up his sleeves she might be tempted to repeat the office performance of March 2001. The memories alone of the acrobatics that took place that night while in their office at the J Edgar Hoover Building in Washington DC still made her blush. It was adventurous and out of character and Mulder made her a joke name plate out of paper the next day, telling her he would work on the floor if it meant any repeat performances. Much to his chagrin, it didn’t happen again. Such a shame for so much ample work space. 

 

It had just been too long between her seeing him like this and the fire he ignited in her belly was no longer an ember but a smoldering heat. She clenched her hands into fists and dug her nails into her palms, hoping to distract herself from her own overactive libido. 

 

“Scully?” he prompted and she looked up at him through her lashes, hoping her face wasn’t giving away the sinful thoughts she had been harbouring just then. He cleared his throat. “You… uh, you look good in the suit.”

 

She swallowed and her mouth crooked up in a half smile. “Same to you, Mulder.”

 

*******

He was used to spotting her across crowded rooms, police stations and hospitals. Her copper locks were the first thing to give her location away however it wasn’t just that. He could spot her anywhere. 

 

She was wearing her hair shorter these days and she was letting the natural curl come out to play a bit more. Mulder witnessed her trying to straighten that hair for years and the soft curls at the bottom were not out of purpose but out of convenience. 

 

The difference to how she looked as a doctor to how she looked as an FBI agent was not as subtle. Gone was her white doctor’s jacket, embroidered with her name, the pockets full of things like a beeper, retractable pens, thermometre, tongue depressors, her stethoscope and a small flashlight. He always liked Scully in scrubs but then again, Mulder was a bit of a pervert. He liked her in white sneakers, standing across from him with goggles on her face, telling him the science didn’t make sense or the facts where XYZ.

 

The tired doctor who came home to him while he was under long-term isolation, before his freedom, wasn’t that doctor. That doctor looked at him with worried eyes, sad to see where their paths had lead them.

 

The FBI agent that was Dana Scully was pulled together, her hair was tidy but she wore nicer shoes nowadays. He could see the gun on her hip under her tailored jacket, her lapel badge hanging from her left side. and she put her purse down on the desk they had assigned her, right across from his. He was still debating whether or not to make a battleship reference or just leave one set on her desk on evening.

 

With the way things were going lately, it probably wouldn’t be appropriate. He hadn’t been overly kind to her and the snide remarks slipped out like acid through his teeth. He couldn’t help himself. He wanted her back.

 

In an attempt to will his way out of the depression, he picked up a few new suits, some better ties and gotten himself a shave and a hair cut. At least he looked like a fucking FBI agent, he felt a little more productive instead of holed up in the house they used to share. 

 

He cleared his throat and decided he should talk to her. 

 

“What’s up doc?” he quipped as he took in the sight that was Dana Scully in blue. He liked her in blue as much as he liked her in those scrubs. 

 

He saw her eyes take in his appearance but he was distracted by the flush that was rising up in her cheeks. She didn’t look uncomfortable, he knew that facial expression. He wondered if she was remembering better times or - shit.

 

Her tongue darted out to wet her lip and he knew, she was thinking of something.

 

“Scully,” he started and he could see it in her eyes when she looked at him. The want was there. He cleared his throat. “You… uh, you look good in the suit.”

 

She swallowed and her mouth crooked up in a half smile. “Same to you, Mulder.”


End file.
